I'm an IT professional. I have known for some time the ramifications of the Y2K problem. Recently, a friend (his brother is working on a solution of the grid problem as part of an IBM team) told me to start stocking food, fuel, and ammo.

From everything that others have been able to gather, what do you think are the odds that we will find a solution that works before 1/1/2000. And what are the odds it will work.

In General, what do you think are the odds that the grid will go down for 90 days or more. I realize any responses would be strictly conjecture. Frankly I'm not very optimistic, I think we've waited to long. Should I be stockpiling for 3 months or 6, or more.

-- Anonymous, May 13, 1998

Answers

Tom, 3 to 6 months may be fairly optomistic. I manage y2k projects and the amount that is out there compared to the resources we have availabe is enourmous. The odds of finding 1 solution for 60 or 70 mostly outdated languages adn many many types of platforms are 0. We can fix some but if we loose the power grid compliant or non-compliant does not mattter. You had better prepare for a long outage (years) it takes computers to fix computers. One can not do it without them. With no power we will not have copmuters at our disposal, therefore we can not fix copmuters, we cannot correct the problem, we cannot turn the lights back on for a long long time. When a man suddenly finds no food or water due to electrical failure and his family starving he is not going to work he is going to try to find food and water for his family. It will be a long time.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 1998

Steve You indicated this was your educated guess, please elobrate as to what observations beyond those listed leads to this conclusion. I am not trying to be funny. I appreciate very much your answer. However much of me and my family's future depends upon me evaluating this situation and coming to a conclusion that is good for us. I find several people saying the power grid is going down. However, I am not a technical person at the level required to evaluate this situation and need information from people that understand the severity of my situation. I am not worried about the other impacts of Y2k the power grid is the key we can deal with the others but if the power grid goes everything goes including order. I encourage everyone that reads these postings that have technological data or information please post it, share it or send me an "e mail" i would be appreciative. I have concluded that most companies can not afford to tell the entire story until it is too late. How we react is going to be dependent on what we learn from our own investigation-----Do your part and share....I need it.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 1998

It's really difficult to get an assessment of how bad it really is -- in that regard, I'm with Tom. To me, a lot of it depends on the embedded systems -- water pumps, transformer switches, etc. Do any of you have information on how many systems have a y2k bug serious enough to impact system performance?

-- Anonymous, May 29, 1998